Great Throughts Treasury

"Nobody ever stubs his toe against a mountain. It's the little temptations that bring a man down."

"The voice is on the borderline between the physical and the spiritual."

"A people's memory is history. A people without a history can grow neither wiser nor better."

"I fear you. As victors, you may become the bureaucracy: doling out to each his bit as in a poorhouse , assigning to each his task as in a prison. And you want to exterminate the creator of new worlds, - the free human will, and stop up the purest well of human happiness - the power of the one-to-face thousands, to stand up to peoples and generations. "

"The soul is imprisoned in the body, and the Lord... built two windows in the wall of the prison... Unfortunately, the windows have curtains - eyelids; and a man whose soul is impure, feeling himself scrutinized, lets down the curtains and conceals the soul."

"Children... constitute man's eternity."

"They are all so-called Christian nations, but... this superimposed religion... does not penetrate into the core of their souls. It has no relation to their daily experience... It is a key to open a heaven after death and not a key with which to force open the portals of this life."

"The worst dog gets the best bone."

"The soul is imprisoned in the body, and the Lord... built two windows in the wall of the prison... Unfortunately, the windows have curtains—eyelids; and a man whose soul is impure, feeling himself scrutinized, lets down the curtains and conceals the soul."

"A people's memory is history; and as a man without a memory, so a people without a history cannot grow wiser, better."

"With the same bricks one may erect... a palace or a prison.... The same letters are used in Holy Writ and heretical works."

"Many refined people will not kill a fly, but eat an ox."

"Don't look up to heaven, for what will you see in the sky, except stars, luminous but cold, wholly insensitive to pity?"

"Who tells the truth needs no fancy phrases."